“I wouldn’t miss being here to help celebrate the Opry’s 40th,” said Shelton, a coach on NBC’s talent competition “The Voice.” “To me, the Grand Ole Opry is an artist, and I get to be one of its songs that night.”

Click here to see a photo gallery of "Playin’ Possum! The Final No Show" at Bridgestone Arena on Friday.Here, Dierks Bentley performs. (Photo: John Partipilio/The Tennessean)

11:11 p.m.: A tribute concert to George Jones would not be complete without “He Stopped Loving Her Today.” Alan Jackson does the honors.

Then he invites Nancy Jones on stage and invites the audience to sing along.

“This is the greatest country song by the greatest country singer, Mr. George Jones,” Jackson says, as he again launches into the chorus of “He Stopped Loving Her Today.”

“Thank you all so much,” he says, “George, we love you.”

Leaving the stage, his arm around Nancy Jones’ waist, Jackson stops to set the rocking chair on stage in motion. As the chair meant for Jones rocks slowly back and forth, the crowd claps and cheers begging for more.

But it is, indeed, the end.

George Jones (photo: Peyton Hoge).

George Jones’ tribute is complete, after almost four hours.

The audience has made it clear that, like his chair, it truly rocked.

11:09 p.m.: Stacy McCloud returns to the stage and invites the audience to recognize Nancy Jones.

Cal Smith, who topped the charts with “Country Bumpkin,” “The Lord Knows I’m Drinking” and “It’s Time To Pay the Fiddler,” died Thursday, Oct. 10, at age 81.

April 7, 1932 - Oct. 10, 2013

Calvin Grand Shofner -- known professionally as Cal Smith, and famed for top-charting hits “Country Bumpkin,” “The Lord Knows I’m Drinking” and “It’s Time To Pay the Fiddler” -- died Thursday, Oct. 10, in Branson, Mo., at age 81.

Born in Gans, Okla., Mr. Smith grew up in the San Jose, Calif., area, and became a popular disc jockey prior to joining Ernest Tubb’s Texas Troubadours as a rhythm guitarist in 1962. Mr. Smith worked with Tubb until 1968, when he became a solo performer.

Don Wayne wrote “Country Bumpkin,” after being critiqued by a publishing industry professional as being too country: “Nobody wants to hear about that frost on the pumpkin,” was the criticism. Wayne wrote of a man who met a woman who teased him, “Hello, country bumpkin/ How’s the frost out on the pumpkin?”

“And then the story just unfolded,” Wayne told author Philip Self in “Guitar Pull: Conversations With Country’s Legendary Songwriters.” “I thought to myself, ‘Man, I’ve stumbled on to a hit song here.’ But after thinking about it further, I thought, ‘This could be more than a hit song. This could be a great song, if I write what I’m seeing.’”

George Jones' planned farewell concert in November will now be a tribute concert. Jones passed away on April 26. Click the photo for a gallery of images from Jones' funeral last week at the Grand Ole Opry House in Nashville. (Tennessean File Photo)

The talent line up for George Jones’ tribute concert — originally planned as the Country Music Hall of Famer’s final concert in his farewell tour — continues to grow.

On Tuesday, Jones’ widow Nancy Jones revealed even more celebrities who are set to appear at the sold-out Nov. 22 concert at Bridgestone Arena, now entitled “Playin’ Possum! The Final NO Show.”

Jones, who struggled with alcohol abuse and earned a reputation over a period in his career for not showing up at his concerts, died in April at age 81.

“The evening of George Jones songs is going to be the best musical tribute Nashville has ever seen,” Nancy Jones said in a statement. “We have many surprises planned, and I just wish George could be here to see what we are doing for him.”

A line formed outside Nashville Palace well before 8:30 a.m. Wednesday morning for the Reunion of Professional Entertainers (R.O.P.E.) breakfast. (photo: Jennifer Justus)

Drink plenty of water. Start the day with a good breakfast.

It might read like advice from Mom or a Wheaties commercial, but it’s also how some things get rolling during CMA Music Festival week.

The day before the official start of the festival, two groups held two different breakfasts to give fans a chance to hear music, take photos and collect autographs.

Near the Grand Ole Opry House at the sold-out Reunion of Professional Entertainers (R.O.P.E.) breakfast, a line snaked around the Nashville Palace on Wednesday morning. Fans waited for legends such as Mel Tillis, Charley Pride, Bill Anderson and Jean Shepard.

They stood in line with performers including rhinestone-bedecked Joe Edwards, who played fiddle in the “Grand Ole Opry” staff band for more than 30 years. His wife, entertainer Jan Edwards, said she can’t get used to calling the week’s events “CMA Fest,” as she’s used to the old days of calling it “Fan Fair.”

Inside Nashville Palace, Judy Wilson of LaFollette, Tenn., said she had returned for a second year to attend the R.O.P.E. breakfast and Marty Stuart’s Late Night Jam on Wednesday night. An avid fan of George Jones, she had visited previously for his fan club parties.

“We visited his grave yesterday,” she said.

Even earlier than the R.O.P.E. breakfast this morning, at just after 7 a.m., about 350 fans had already settled in for a meal downtown at the sold-out GAC Kick-Off Breakfast in the atrium of the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum.

Sandra Thomas of Raleigh, N.C., has been coming to the GAC breakfast for four years and to CMA Music Festival for 12 years. She said she looked forward to hearing Easton Corbin perform later in the morning after Lonestar, Eric Paslay and Drake White.

It might have been a younger bunch of performers at the GAC event, but the legends were honored, too.

“I’m a fan of George Jones…” White said in a mini-speech during his new single “Simple Life.” Applause erupted and hands lifted toward the ceiling. “…and I’m a fan of you,” he said.

So even with a different vibe in two different parts of town, the breakfasts this morning had at least a couple things in common: a love of country music and scrambled eggs.

Pickler kicked off the Tuesday Night Opry in a fitted purple dress and a wide smile with “Stop Cheating on Me,” a song she says is her favorite from her last album “100 Proof.” The crowd held up “10” paddles after she finished, a nod to her “Dancing” days.

“That’s so sweet,” she said. “I wish you all could have been the judges.”

Pickler’s husband songwriter Kyle Jacobs was in the house, as was the other man in her life: dance partner Hough.

Pickler didn’t introduce him from the stage, but he was present — mirror-ball trophy in hand — during a backstage party organized to celebrate their win.

“He’s such a great sport,” Pickler said. “He’s embraced everything but it’s really cool he was able to be here tonight for this special get-together. I didn’t realize it was going to be all of this. I was at a little loss for words. I feel like thank you is an understatement. You can’t win that by yourself.”

During the party, Grand Ole Opry Vice President and General Manager Pete Fisher recalled Pickler’s debut on the “Opry” and how she sat down on the stage’s historic circle to sing her songs that night.

Opinions are like...... they are, like, really plentiful, and I’m glad for that. I get paid for mine, which is a pretty sweet deal. And your uncomplicated opinion about a complicated political situation was no reason for radio programmers to remove your wonderful music from country radio stations.

Plenty of other performers - Merle Haggard, Bruce Springsteen, Kanye West, Toby Keith, Johnny Cash, Woody Guthrie, Beyonce Knowles, etc. - have offered political opinions without corporations banning their music. And it’s unfortunate and disappointing that only a handful of country artists - Vince Gill, Merle Haggard and Garth Brooks among them - defended you and your place in country music after your comments. Every country music artist and record label should have been petitioning corporate radio outfits Cox, Cumulus and Clear Channel to play the Dixie Chicks music, in the name of free speech and deft musicianship.

You were a victim of knee-jerk ridiculousness.

Ten years later, you are a perpetrator of knee-jerk ridiculousness, as highlighted in a new “Rolling Stone” article teased on the front cover as “Natalie Maines Declares War On Nashville.”

Can’t we just let our knees rest for a while?

I get that you were hurt and wronged by everything that went down a decade ago. And I’m not advocating that anyone stay away from your new solo album, “Mother,” because of the comments you’ve made about Music City music. I have enjoyed listening to “Mother.”

More than 200 military service members — Vietnam veterans and Tennessee National Guard members — walked a red carpet into the Grand Ole Opry House for Tuesday’s military appreciation night.

Many of the Opry members and other country singers on the Tuesday Night Opry mingled with the service members on the way in, including Sony Music Nashville recording artist Angie Johnson. Johnson, herself a veteran, spent six years serving in the Air Force and the last seven years as a member of the Air National Guard.

The evening was special for Johnson, who released her EP “Sing for You” that day and was making her first Opry appearance since joining Sony.

“Anytime I get invited to play the Opry it is a huge honor but tonight even more so because they are honoring the Vietnam veterans,” she said. “I jumped on the chance to be here for this.”

Johnson’s path to the Opry started while she was in the military. As a member of the Air Force Band, Johnson’s job was to meet troops and boost morale. During a visit to the Middle East, a soldier filmed her singing an Adele song and posted the video on YouTube. It went viral and Carson Daly reached out to Johnson on Twitter. Johnson, who had been a trying to make it for years as a country singer in Nashville, went on “The Voice” as a member of Cee Lo Green’s team. She says she didn’t last very long on the show, but when she came back to Nashville her drive to make it in country music had been reignited. Soon after, she was signed to Sony Music Nashville.

“I signed the contract without hesitation,” she laughs. “I’m the Cinderella in camo,” she said Tuesday.

While on the Opry stage, Johnson sang two songs from her EP and “The Star Spangled Banner,” because she says “it’s honestly my favorite song to sing.”

When she closed her three-song set, she invited the audience to stand and sing with her, which they did, many with their hands over their hearts.

“I feel like I’m singing to an audience full of family,” Johnson says of her military audience. “It’s a lot less nerve-racking than singing for room full of label executives or (judges) Blake (Shelton),Adam (Levine), Cee Lo and Christina (Aguilera) on ‘The Voice.’”

Other performers during military appreciation night included former service member Craig Morgan, who sang his patriotic “More Trucks Than Cars”; Bill Anderson, who performed “Army Hat”; and Lee Greenwood, who delivered his signature song “God Bless the USA.”

Ken Paulson, vice chair, and songwriter Pat Alger, chair of Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame, at the new Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame at the Music City Center. (Photo: Sanford Myers/The Tennessean)

It’s not the freestanding museum on Music Row they once hoped for, but songwriters agree that the exhibit dedicated to the Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame, which will be unveiled with the opening of Music City Center on Sunday, is far more than they could have dreamed of even three years ago.

“You have to think about it in terms of a whole,” says songwriter Pat Alger, chairman of the Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame. “On one hand, it’s not a standalone museum or anything like that. But, it is a state-of the art digital museum.”

Displayed prominently in the area of the building that faces Sixth Avenue and Demonbreun Street, the new Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame exhibit is a wall that’s 10 feet high and 50 feet long.

Three handicap-accessible touch screen computers are mounted on the wall, which also houses display cases for memorabilia. The touch screens are interactive, with all the members alphabetized on the screen. Guests choose a name and that songwriter’s catalog is displayed along with song clips, photos and possibly videos or lyric sheets.

The exhibit continues outside the building with an area called Songwriters Square, where members hope they will one day host songwriter events. The square is inlaid with stones featuring the names of all 188 Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame members, the year they were inducted and their songs. Members’ song titles also are engraved on the stairs leading into the building.

“On paper, it sounds modest, but when you see it, it’s really cool-looking, I think,” Alger says. “The stone work outside is the ingredient I really like. (Inside), I like to say the money is behind the wall.”

Also a member of that star-studded cast: Country Music Hall of Famer Bill Anderson, though he joked to the Tennessean that he might have ended up on the cutting room floor.

"I've been here for 50-plus years, and I was able to share a bit of my perspective of (Nashville) over that long of a period of time," he says. "I'm just anxious to see it. I know I'll learn a lot from watching it."

It didn't mark Anderson's first film role, but it's been a minute since he was on the silver screen.
"I did a few grade-B movies back in the 1960s when that was kind of a new thing. This is a long way from being in 'Forty Acre Feud' and 'Hillbillies in a Haunted House' (laughs)."

On second thought, Anderson didn't believe he was in the latter film (but perhaps that was for the best).

Sarah Darling in 'The Story of Nashville' (photo: The Wade Brothers)

Sarah Darling, on the other hand, is making her big-screen debut with the film, which caught up the rising country star last year as she prepared to perform on the "Grand Ole Opry." They've had her back some thirty times since then.

"I couldn't be more excited, because I feel like the doors are wide open for all kinds of musicians," she said. "If you have a passion for music, you should be here."

The film's executive producer - NCVC president and CEO Butch Spyridon - said that as Nashville's music community earns more international attention, it's important to remember its roots. The screening came at a fitting time, as Nashville is celebrating several new additions to the concert landscape, including the spiritual return of the "Dancin' in the District" concert series as "Nashville Dancin'."

"It's been a really good week," Spyridon says. "The more music we can put in Music City, the more undeniable our brand and our destination becomes."